Unspoken Love
by Angel Shinigami
Summary: Elizabeth's Death leaves Peter broken. Neal can only help so much, will he be able to heal the shattered Agent? Warnings! Character Death, Slash! Peter/Neal


_**Title: Unspoken Love**_

_**Author: Angelshinigami**_

_**Pairings: Peter/Neal, Peter/Elizabeth**_

_**Disclaimer: I Do not own the White Collar Characters. I simply use them for my own demented purposes.**_

_**Warnings: Character Death, Mentioned Slash**_

_**AN: This story was written for a prompt on Collarkink on LiveJournal. Please go check it out if you're into White Collar. **_

_**Chapter 1**_

_**88888888**_

_**I was at work when the phone rang that warm July afternoon. I can't remember what we'd had for lunch or the case we'd been working. I couldn't tell you what color suit I was wearing or the silly jokes my partner, Neal Caffery, had been making right up until the shrill screams of the phone on my desk interrupted us, nor my sharp and at times playful replies, but I have no problem with the events that shattered that peaceful, utterly unmemorable work day. Even now, it haunts me…**_

"_**Agent Burke?" The voice questioned, the tone high and shaky. **_

_**I remember that the voice was female, her pitch suggesting she was quietly praying that she had the wrong number and she would have more time to prepare herself for the come conversation.**_

_**I remember the dread I felt in that instance. **_

_**I'd had that small catch to my speech before. That brief fear and immense guilt about being the bearer of bad news. **_

"_**This is he." I replied, my heart stopping and speeding up at the same time, a funny sensation that caused me to experience an odd tingling just under my ribcage, as if I'd just been on a roller coaster or in a free falling elevator. **_

"_**Sir…" The woman again paused and I wanted to scream for her to just get whatever she was going to say out in the open. I feared the worst, but to be honest, nothing could've prepared me for what she actually said. "Agent Burke, I regret to inform you that your wife, Elizabeth Margaret Burke, was the victim of a motor vehicle collision. She is being sent to Alexandria Memorial on Thirtieth and Fontaine." **_

_**I remember sitting so quickly I almost missed the chair behind me, before shooting back to my feet to search for my keys. **_

_**The woman on the phone hadn't told me any more than that the other driver hadn't survived and that she was sorry. **_

_**I was lucky Neal wasn't one to loose his head in these type of situations. He simply took the keys out of my shaking hands and dove us to the hospital as fast as he could, legality be dammed. **_

'_**It couldn't be El, it just couldn't be. There had to be a mistake, they'd made a mistake…' On and on I repeated these words. They became my mantra of sorts, my security blanket, my shield, and Neal never said a word, not one. Then again, I think I appreciate that about him the most…**_

_**Information was scarce once we arrived. The nurses in the ER directed us to the surgery waiting room where we were left with only pitying looks and empty words of hope. Hours passed, four… five… I can't remember exactly, but by the time the surgeon came out of those ominous double doors, unstringing his thin paper face mask and stripping the blood coated gloves, I had no energy to do much more than stand warily and take a weak step forward in attempt to meet him half way. **_

_**His look was all I needed, that look of disinterest mixed with indifference. The look of a man that had dealt with death for to long. Informed one to many families of lost loved ones. Said the same hallow words with various names and causes interchanged or replaced. **_

_**I don't remember Neal catching me as my knees buckled, but I remember the pressure of his arm around my shoulders as I was guided back to the hard plastic chairs that hadn't been any comfort in the past however long it had been. **_

_**My Elizabeth was gone. **_

_**The next week was a whirl of family and tears and words of grief from those that had known her. Hand shakes and apologies on top of hugs and half hearted sympathies from people that seemed to think I wanted them to touch me. **_

_**No one said a bad word about El. Not once during the funeral did anyone mention the fact that she snorted when she laughed or that she drank orange juice from the carton, then forgot the put the cap back on when she put it away. It was as if in death, she had some how become a saint rather than the flawed woman I'd been in love with for more than half of my life. **_

_**I didn't make it though the eulogy I'd prepared. I hardly made it through the grave side goodbye, I know I wouldn't have made it through the obligatory after burial reception that I really hadn't wanted to host if it hadn't been for Neal. **_

_**I don't know how he did it. How he smiled, how he conversed, how he charmed people in and out of my home faster than the door could close behind them. But he did and before I knew it, it was just us. Neal asking if he could help and my insistence that he leave.**_

_**To be honest to myself, I hadn't wanted to be alone, not in the house that was not just mine, but ours. **_

_**Mine and hers.**_

_**Her blue slippers were still sticking out from under the couch, a expert level crossword book still folded open on the coffee table with a chewed up pencil laying benignly across one of her half finished puzzles. **_

_**I don't think I moved from that spot, tore my eyes away from that book, breathed anymore than I had to until morning when Neal was once more by my side, pulling me to my feet and up the stairs to a room I hadn't entered since the phone call that terrible day just a week or so ago. **_

"_**She's gone Neal…" I whispered, as we climbed the stairs. Each slowly shuffled step bringing us closer and closer to that closed door at the far end of the hall. "She's gone…taken…stolen…" **_

_**I don't think he meant to kiss me at first, his quick stop and sudden pivot contrasting greatly to my continued forward movements. That first meeting of our lips seeming to shock him as much as it did me. But I'll admit I wasn't in any state of mind to ignore the offer to forget, if even for an instant, when I found those lips pressed to mine again. They were soft and willing, eager almost in their heated perusal. **_

_**I wish I could say I could blame that morning on to much to drink. On a dream. On a grief induced hallucination, but I've never been one to lie to myself if even in the quite of my own heart. **_

_**That morning had been about release. About forgetting. About silent tears neither of us has ever mentioned. Time has passed and other morning afters have been faced with silent hand holding and a shared cup of coffee, but we never say anything during or after. It is just known. And unspoken love. **_

_**I don't say I love the way he doodles on napkin corners or that he snores so loud the dog has stopped sleeping in the room with us. I don't want those words to pass my lips ever again, but I think he knows. It's in the way he holds me when I insist on watching my wedding video and drives us home from the Cemetery when I can't seem to do much more than stare out at nothing. In the way he caresses the key I finally gave him so that I wouldn't have to deal with him breaking in anymore, in the way he hides the ugly ties I buy just to irritate him, but always tells me he likes them and is so sad to hear that I can't find them. **_

_**Neal can't fill the gaping hole in my heart, the place that only El could seem to touch and fill every inch of with her bright smiles and quick wit, but in his attempt not to, he did. A part of my heart I didn't know I had the ability to give away, I gave to him. Our is a pairing that doesn't cry out for passion, I can't seem to find the will for that anymore. But my heart is content with this quite sharing of lives. **_

_**I don't know how he feels about all of this, I've never asked and he has never volunteered the information. I hope he is happy with our unspoken arrangement, I hope he sees how much I need him as much more than just a companion that keeps me from going to far from time to time…how much I would speak those words for him if I could.**_

_**I hope…**_

_**The End **_


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